Furry Boots

Something I hate to say, and something I say a lot is that Aberdeen is not like anywhere else.

Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely place, in its own way, but it does have a culture, language and economy all of its own.

Some fundraising events that work elsewhere just don't work here. The problem is that saying that can sound like an excuse, or excessive parochialism. It's not, it's just a fact.

And it's not only fundraising.

When Kate Moss first launched a collection at TopShop there were guards at the doors of the London shops. Shoppers rushed in grabbing anything they could get their hands on. Queues stretched all along the street, and the media enjoyed the circus. The day it went on sale in Aberdeen I was driving past Aberdeen's Topshop at five to nine, and there were six school-age girls waiting for it to open. So much for the massive demand, in Aberdeen.

A one-off? No.

Today I read about Edinburgh's struggles with traffic chaos, created when T in the Park tickets went on sale. In Dundee two girls started queueing on Wednesday for the tickets that went on sale on Friday at 9am. Glasgow's SECC put on extra box-office and security staff to cope with the demand, with people queueing from Thursday morning.

Plenty of coverage in all the press about the demand and long queues too.

Now we're talking about "Scotland’s biggest outdoor music festival". Festival organisers said all of the weekend camping tickets put on sale at 0900 GMT on Friday had been sold by the end of the day, and only a handful of tickets remained for day trippers and weekend non-camping coach packages.

I know a lot of people in Aberdeen that go every year, so what makes Aberdeen different? This.

And what's the lesson? Well Aberdonians do go, they do buy their tickets, but I suspect they do it differently. So as well as knowing your product, you need to know your market. And you need to know if your market is different in different places.

It might be more different that you could ever know.